Part of a project manager's job typically is to track and report the progress made in completing specific tasks. Many project managers track the progress each individual employee has made in accomplishing an assignment. Thus, project management software has been developed to allow a user to track the amount of time a particular individual has worked on a specific assignment and how much more working time is needed to complete the assignment.
Project management software generally allows a user to enter and manipulate tasks, resources, and assignments. A task is a project that needs to be completed. Resources are typically the individuals who complete the tasks. Assignments are the links between tasks and resources. In other words, an assignment is the allocation of a particular resource to a particular task. Several resources may be assigned to complete a task. Thus, there may be several assignments needed to complete one task.
A project manager often wants to track the amount of work that has been completed on assignments and the amount of work that remains to be completed. The amount of work that has been completed is known as actual work and the amount of work that is yet to be completed is known as remaining work.
Project management software typically allows a user to enter the actual work performed by an individual on a particular assignment. A user can view the actual work performed at a different granularity than the granularity at which the actual work was entered. For instance, Bob is assigned to task A. Bob enters his actual work on a daily basis using project management software. However, Bob's manager views Bob's actual work on a monthly or quarterly basis rather than a daily basis. Most project management software allows Bob's manager to view Bob's total actual work at different granularities. However, present project management software suffers from the drawback that the actual work must be edited at the same granularity at which it was entered.
In project management software, actual work is typically stored as a series of records that track the time work occurred and the total amount of actual work. Editing these records is simple at the granularity of entry, because the start time and end time are found and the total work for the existing record is changed. However, it is complex to edit these records at a different granularity from the granularity of entry. Thus, project management software typically only allows the user to view actual work at different granularities, while editing of actual work must be done at the granularity of entry.
However, editing actual work at the granularity of entry is counterintuitive to the user. The user, viewing actual work at a particular granularity, expects to be able to edit the actual work at that granularity.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a project management program module that simplifies the process of editing actual work records. There is also a need for a project management program module that allows a user to edit actual work records in a manner that is convenient and intuitive to the user. There is a further need for a project management program module that allows a user to edit actual work records at a different granularity than the granularity of entry. There is still a further need for a project management program module that allows flexibility in editing actual work records.